VERY cool scientists in Oxfordshire have been helping a quest to create 'the perfect ice cream'.

Researchers in Harwell blasted scoops of vanilla with X-Rays to learn more about its 'microstructure'.

Physicists at the Diamond Light Source laboratory were helping an international team trying to develop an ice cream that can be transported at higher temperatures without ruining its texture.

Ice cream's unique 'mouthfeel' and taste are a product of its microscopic crystalline structure.

However this structure can be warped at temperatures above -30°C, for example during shipping and even in home freezers.

A worldwide team of food scientists trying to crack this problem brought their frozen treats to Diamond Light Source, which uses a huge particle accelerator to produce light 10 billion times brighter than the sun.

There, the boffins blasted their samples with X-Rays and discovered that ice cream which has been 'thermally abused' – stored between -15°C and -5°C for several days – had bigger ice crystals and air bubbles.

Professor Peter Lee of the Harwell research complex said: "This work also revealed other interesting phenomena, including the role of the unfrozen matrix in maintaining the ice cream’s microstructural stability and the complex interactions between ice crystals and air bubbles."

Diamond said the team’s results had provided 'crucial' information enhancing the understanding of microstructures in ice cream and other soft foods.